Fiona Macleod
Tribal chiefs in charge of a private game reserve in northern KwaZulu-Natal are determined to save Sahib, the mighty African elephant bull stranded in exile in a German circus.
The chiefs came forward this week to offer Sahib sanctuary in their community-run reserve, after Northern Province conservation officials rejected the Mayibuye Sahib project started by a wildlife rehabilitation centre in that province.
“The chiefs say Sahib is an African elephant and he must return to Africa,” says Lawrence Anthony, a representative of the reserve. “They would welcome him back home.”
The chiefs are in charge of an innovative community conservation project in the Royal Zulu Reserve, which spans about 15 000ha adjacent to the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi provincial game reserve. Anthony says it has a few resident elephants, and the chiefs would have to get expert advice on how to integrate Sahib.
The Mail & Guardian reported last week that Sahib, a 20-year-old bull with magnificent tusks, was orphaned in a cull in Zimbabwe and has been abused and bullied in the German circus for the past 18 years. The circus owners no longer want him and are threatening to shoot him.
The SanWild wildlife sanctuary in Northern Province secured funding for his return, and assembled a group of local elephant experts to study his rehabilitation in the wild. But bureaucrats refused to give him an import permit, because they said the Mayibuye Sahib project would not contribute significantly towards conservation and might cause an “unmanageable precedent”.
The national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism referred appeals by SanWild back to the Northern Province officials, saying it was a provincial rather than a national decision. This week the provincial department informed SanWild its refusal to grant an import permit was not negotiable.
Anthony is optimistic the KwaZulu-Natal Conservation Service will regard the chiefs’ support for the Mayibuye Sahib project in a favourable light. “Our preliminary inquiries indicate they will have an open mind to granting an import permit,” he says.